CD Designs Blog

Last year we looked at a contender for the coolest driveway in the world – an amazing private racetrack found adjoining a house on the outskirts of Lakeland, Florida (http://jalopnik.com/5156906/google-earth-reveals-coolest-driveway-ever). If there is anything cooler than having your own carting track outside your house, then we really don’t know what it is!

Or at least we didn’t, until we heard about the driveway of New Zealand Rally champ Rod Millen! He has taken the race track driveway concept and expanded it further, with what he calls the “Leadfoot Ranch”. This mile long track leads up to his ranch in Hahei, New Zealand, and took several years of planning, paving and clearing of debris. It is a race-paved daredevil drive, featuring many classic features inspired by the very tracks Millen made his name on including a brutal hill climb, a bridge for onlookers to stand on to witness the spectacle, hair raising hairpin bends, speedy straights, and more!

And rather than keep it to himself, Millen opened it up to fellow racers such as Jeff Zwart and Rhys Millen, for a 60th birthday spectacular he dubbed the “Leadfoot Festival”. the racers were hot, and the cars were hotter, including an Audi Quattro B Rally replica, a V8-powered Escort and an 800-hp Toyota Celica racer.

I’m just dropping you a quick email to say thank you for our new driveway. I’ve been waiting for nearly 18 months now for a space to park my car and the driveway that you have given us allows us to fit both my husband’s van and my car next to each other with room to spare.

We’ve had some really positive comments from our neighbours about how good the drive looks now – it’s a massive improvement on how it was before.

The guys who worked on it really did an excellent job – nothing was too much trouble including helping remove and replace fence panels in the back of our house so that we could get in and out and even taking our old block paving to my parents’ allotment for them. They were really polite, hard working and personable – a credit to your company.

I would have no hesitation in recommending your company to anyone who was thinking of having this type of driveway done, in fact I would recommend this over block paving. Thank you once again and all the best for the future.

We do a lot of work replacing driveways. Whatever the surfacing material used, age and use can take their toll on driveways. Cracking and crumbling can occur, along with a host of other problems depending on which surfacing material your drive is made out of. What you’re left with is uneven and unsightly.

As concrete driveways become increasingly popular, there are more of them about, and, of course, there’s a bit of variety in the quality of driveways out there. While you’ve got the quality of the kind of work we do at one end of the scale (the good end!), there are other firms who don’t match up to our standard.

When we’re doing work at a property, we’ll pull up and remove old surfacing as part of the process of excavating the area, and then filling that excavation with sub-base. We’ll take that spoil away with us, naturally.

Sometimes people ask why we can’t just lay our pattern imprinted concrete over their existing concrete driveway. Well, yes, in theory you could do that, but it wouldn’t be the best idea. Pattern imprinted concrete poured on-top wouldn’t be stable; it’d crack and lift off the old concrete. There’s no point replacing an unfit driveway with a new one which will also fall apart.

If you own a motorbike, the chances are you like to look after it. Motorbike owners tend, for some reason, to treat their vehicles with more affection than other people do with their cars. And we kind of understand why; whether they’re sleek Japanese sport-bikes, gleaming black-and-chrome road-bikes, or even just battered crossers, motorbikes are fun machines.

If you’re planning as new driveway and you own a motorbike, you should be looking for a surfacing material that’s tough as well as being attractive. Guess what? Pattern imprinted concrete is exactly what you’re looking for. It’s becoming increasingly popular as a driveway surfacing material, and we’re one of the best contractors providing it in the North West.

Pattern imprinted concrete isn’t just tough; it also looks good. Take a look at our case studies for examples of some completed pattern imprinted concrete driveways and we’re sure you’ll agree. And pattern imprinted concrete makes it very simple to design a driveway layout unique to your property. Want a special area for your pride and joy? It’s easy; a different pattern, a complimentary colour, and there you have it: a unique parking space for your bike.

Forgive us for pointing out the obvious, but concrete is pretty strong stuff. It’s used for all manner of construction tasks, and if you use it properly – like we do at Complete Driveway Designs – it’s a remarkably adaptable material.

Investing in a pattern imprinted concrete driveway also means that you can avoid some of the problems that come with other surfacing materials. In summer, for example, tarmacadam can be adversely affected by heat. If it’s your average summer, your tarmacadam should be fine. When temperatures rise, however, tarmacadam can sometimes become soft. That’s going to make it more susceptible to cosmetic damage, like scuffing and denting.

If you take a look at our case studies you’ll see some examples of pattern imprinted concrete driveways that we’ve already installed for our customers. As you’ll see from those case studies, our pattern imprinted drives look really good. They’ll also give you a chance to see how they look in good weather; we don’t tend to take photos of our work when it’s raining.